


Six Pounds, Ten Ounces

by Erandri



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Adoption, Future Fic, M/M, Married Couple, Sudden POV Change At The End Because I Do What I Want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-26 23:18:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18726871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erandri/pseuds/Erandri
Summary: “Have you ever thought about having kids of your own?” David asks.“Yeah. Yeah, i’ve thought about it,” Patrick's voice is calm and measured like he doesn’t want to spook David, “I love the life that we have, you and the store, that’s all I need to be happy… but I do like the idea of us raising a kid together. Have you ever thought about us having kids?” Patrick asks quietly like he already knows the answer.





	Six Pounds, Ten Ounces

**Author's Note:**

> Some of y'all on tumblr got me thinking about David and Patrick and babies.
> 
> Not beta'd.

David gets to the store just before eleven, letting a couple of women carrying Rose Apothecary totes out of the shop before he goes up the steps, spotting Patrick through the window standing in the back towards their candle display. The bell above the door chimes his arrival, Patrick turning to greet him with a smile, and David stops in his tracks when he sees that Patrick isn’t alone in the store. Resting snugly in his husband's arms is a little baby, fast asleep with its hand fisted in Patrick's shirt.

“Morning,” Patrick greets him happily as if he isn’t currently holding someone's child. Normally David would go over and kiss him hello, but he’s rooted to the spot, stuck watching the way Patrick's hand is rubbing the baby’s back, soothing it even though it’s soundly asleep.

“Hi! What? You have… where did. Why- why do you have a baby?” he finally stammers his confusion at the sight before him making it hard to form a coherent sentence.

“Oh, this is Debbie’s grandson. I’m just holding him while she’s in the bathroom.” Patrick explains.

“Debbie our soap supplier?” he asks and as if on cue the bathroom door opens and Debbie comes out onto the floor.

“David, hi!” she greets him happily, taking his hand a pulling him down so that she can place a kiss on his cheek. He stumbles out a greeting and she turns to Patrick, “How was the little man?”

“Still sleeping like a rock,” Patrick tells her with a proud smile. David can’t take his eyes off of him.

“Your husband is a lifesaver,” Debbie tells him, putting a hand on Patrick's shoulder, “I could  _ not _ get little Henry to settle down but Patrick offered to hold him and suddenly he’s out like a light.”

“Nah, the little guy was ready for his nap, he just couldn’t fight it any longer,” Patrick brushes off Debbie's praise.

“Well, either way, you’re a big help. Now I better take this guy off your hands so you can get back to work,” she says, gently taking the baby from Patrick, trying not to wake him, “Oh, David, since I was in the area I dropped off a test batch of those new honeysuckle soaps I was telling you about.”

“Oh! Thank you. I’ll be sure to let you know how they go over,” David promises, feeling a little more sure-footed now that Patrick is no longer holding Henry. He waves her goodbye and she leaves, taking a breath to calm himself before turning to face Patrick, “So apparently I've married the baby whispered,” he jokes.

“I’ve just got a lot of practice from babysitting my cousin's kids,” Patrick tells him, but David sees the soft smile as he says it. It’s a tender look that until now David thought had been reserved exclusively for him. He watches as Patrick shakes himself out of his daze and goes back to stocking shelves when it hits him.

_ Patrick wants a baby. _

\---

Now that he’s had the thought, he can’t get the idea of Patrick and babies out of his head. There’s just something about Patrick that screams fatherhood. It’s like he’s was made to be a husband and a father.

“So you never told me that you used to babysit for your cousins,” he says that night once they’ve finished dinner and are washing the dishes.

“I guess it just never came up,” Patrick says with a shrug, rinsing off the plate and handing it to him to dry, “I was one of the only cousins who didn’t have kids so I got asked a lot. I didn’t mind.”

David nods, processing the information. Once the plate is dry he sets it down on the stack and asks the question that has been on his mind all day, “Have you ever thought about having kids of your own?”

He hears rather than sees Patrick stop moving, the slosh of the soap water stilling as the silence stretches between them. He can’t bear to look at Patrick right now so he focuses on his gloved hands as he wrings his drying towel between them. After what feels like an eternity, he hears Patrick start to wash again before he says, “Yeah. Yeah, I’ve thought about it,” Patrick's voice is calm and measured like he doesn’t want to spook David, “I love the life that we have, you and the store, that’s all I need to be happy… but I do like the idea of us raising a kid together.”

David nods his head a little too quickly, pressing his lips together to keep himself from saying anything.

“Have  _ you _ ever thought about us having kids?” Patrick asks quietly like he already knows the answer.

“No,” he answers honestly. Until that morning the thought of them having children had never crossed his mind. Patrick drops the subject, passing over the next plate for him to dry, and the fall into silence again, but David’s mind is racing.

\---

David pounds on the front door, maybe a little too fiercely by the way it shakes in its frame. It’s been almost two weeks since he and Patrick had their conversation about kids and even though they haven’t even hinted at broaching the topic again, David hasn’t been able to get the thought out of his mind. Last night he finally came to a decision and he’s not going to let himself back out now just because people don’t answer their door. He stops knocking when he hears a voice on the other side saying something before the door swings open.

“David,” Jocelyn says, obviously surprised by his presence, “What are you doing here?”

“We need to babysit Roland Junior tonight,” David tells her, matter-of-factly.

“I’m sorry. What?”

“Babysitting. Patrick and I need to watch Roland Junior tonight,” he says again, looking around the empty street like someone could be eavesdropping on him.

“You  _ need _ to?” Jocely asks, squinting her eyes like if she looks at him long enough she’ll be able to figure out why he’s suddenly asking to babysit a child he had previously shown zero interest in.

“Yes, Jocelyn. Call the store and ask Patrick, we can take him at six. You and Roland can go out to dinner or do whatever you two do, just pick him up by nine.”

“O- okay,” Jocelyn agrees but she’s still staring at him in a way that has him squirming under his cashmere sweater, not knowing what to do as she assesses him. When her gaze gets almost unbearable he watches her eyes go wide and her mouth drop open like she’s just figured something out. David’s nerves go on edge as she starts to smile, asking, “So you and Patrick are thinking about-”

“No!” he interrupts before she can finish the thought. If she said what she was going to say, that would make all of this too real, “No, Patrick and I just wanted to do something… nice?”

“Mm-hm,” Jocelyn agrees, biting back her smile, “I’ll just give Patrick a call then?”

“Yes, and um- don't, don’t tell him that I was here?”

“Of course,” she agrees, shutting the door on him with a laugh.

\---

“Is he finally asleep?” David whispers when Patrick comes into their kitchen. The living room is dark behind him, only the soft glow of the tv coming through the doorway as it plays whatever cartoon Roland Junior decided he wanted to watch before bedtime.

“I think so,” Patrick whispers back, kissing him and taking David’s offered glass of wine, “I’m surprised you didn’t put up a fight when Jocelyn asked us to watch him so last minute.”

“Well she just seemed so desperate,” he says, taking a long drink out of his own glass.

Patrick nods his head, watching him with a smirk, “And this wouldn’t have anything to do with that conversation we had the other night, would it?”

“What? What conversation?” he asks, too innocently and he knows that Patrick can see right through him.

“David, I knew going in to this marriage that you didn’t want to have kids, and I knew that I would be okay with that decision.”

“But you shouldn’t have to be  _ okay _ with it! This marriage involves both of us and you shouldn’t have to make these decisions on your own just because you think that’s what I want,” David objects, waving his arms around to make his point and coming dangerously close to spilling his wine.

“What are you saying, David?” Patrick asks and David can head the tremor of hope in his voice.

“I’m saying that tonight wasn’t a total disaster, and,” David pauses, looking away from Patrick and studying a dirty spot on the counter before continuing, “and if it’s something that you want then I think that we should have a con- you know, we should have a- have a conversation about adopting.”

“Are you sure?”

“Please don’t ask me to second guess myself, I just came to this decision like two hours ago,” he pleads, knowing that if Patrick gave him the out right now he would take it.

“Hey,” Patrick says softly, moving around the kitchen island and winding an arm around his waist, pulling him close, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” David tells him automatically, wrapping his arms around his husband's shoulders and kissing him.

\---

David feels like all he does is research adoption. Every spare moment is spent on his phone reading about the adoption process, the problems, the struggles, and the happy ending stories that have him in tears. He and Patrick talked about having kids, and then about options, and then when they seemed to be coming to a decision, life got in the way and the conversations stopped. But David can’t stop thinking about it.

He feels like he has a constant loop playing in his head of every moment he’s ever seen of Patrick with a child. The way he smiles so easily, how his voice gets soft and playful. Patrick seems to light up around kids and David wants to give him that permanently. He wants Patrick to have a child that he can look at like they’re his whole world. He wants Patrick to look at  _ their _ child like they’re his whole world.

Turning away from his stack of possible vendors for their Elmdale store his gaze falls on Patrick. He’s at the stove cooking their dinner, his sleeves rolled up with a dish towel thrown over his shoulder as he tends to their food. Just like that, David knows. He  _ wants _ to have a baby with Patrick. He  _ wants _ to share their lives and their home with a child. Setting the paperwork off to the side he gets up and moves behind Patrick, wrapping his arms around his husband and pressing a kiss to his shoulder.

“Dinner won’t be ready for another ten minutes,” Patrick tells him, leaning back into his embrace.

“Let’s have a baby,” David says, feeling Patrick freeze as soon as he says the words

“Are you serious?” Patrick asks, turning around in his arms so that they’re face to face.

He nods his head, smiling, and says again, “Let’s have a baby!”

David can feel Patrick's smile when he kisses him and he can’t help but smile as he kisses him back. “I love you,” Patrick tells him when they break away, only to pull him back into another consuming kiss, laughing as he does so. They don’t pull apart until they smell dinner burning.

\---

After months of going through the adoption process, applying and being interviewed, and having to do so many home visits he was starting to worry they’d get denied, the adoption agency finally let them know that they had a child available for them. A little girl born six pounds, ten ounces. With ten perfect fingers and ten perfect toes. They had seen the picture, her little face half covered with a pink cap, and known instantly. This was  _ their _ baby.

“I can’t do this,” David says when the waiting gets to be too much and he can’t keep away the thoughts invading his mind. He gets up off the couch and starts pacing the living room floor, trying to work out some of his nervous energy, “What was I thinking, I can’t be responsible for a child! I can barely be held responsible for myself.”

“David, David, hey,” Patrick says calmly, standing in his path and grabbing him with a hand on either side of his face to force him to look his husband in the eye, “It’s gonna be okay. You’re not doing this alone, I’m gonna be right here with you every step of the way. Okay?” David breathes and nods his head as much as Patrick's grasp allows. Patrick loosens his grip, sliding his hands down from his face to his shoulders and kneading the tension out, “We’ve gone through all the classes, we’ve read all the books, and we’ve babyproofed the house so much the social services lady actually laughed at us. We’re ready for this.”

“Okay,” David whispers. He leans in to kiss Patrick, feeling the last of his tension fade away. They pull away when the doorbell rings, turning to stare at their front door.

“Are you ready?” Patrick asks him, taking his hand and squeezing it.

“Let’s do this,” David agrees. They walk to the front door together and he watches Patrick open it for their daughter.

\---

\---

\---

Patrick wakes suddenly, coming to in the darkness of his and David’s room. A quick look at the clock shows that it’s nearly three in the morning. The baby monitor is silent so figuring it’s just his nerves of their first night having a baby in the house that woke him, he closes his eyes and rolls over, trying to go back to sleep.

Eyes still closed, he stretches out a hand to find David on the other side of the bed but only comes up with empty sheets. Opening his eyes again he props himself up on an elbow and looks around the room to see if maybe David is just in the en suite. The room is silent and Patrick knows that he’s alone.

Sleepily, he pushes the covers back and gets out of bed, trying to be as quiet as he can as he opens the door. He pads barefoot into the hallway and across the short distance to the nursery door. He eases it open so that he doesn’t wake Ava and sighs when he sees both his husband and his daughter safely inside.

David is half asleep in the rocking chair, pushing it slowly back and forth on auto-pilot, their daughter sleeping soundly on his shoulder. There’s a spit-up cloth draped over him and an empty bottle lying forgotten in his lap. David’s never looked more beautiful.

“Hey,” he whispers to get David’s attention, placing a hand over David’s where it’s resting on Ava’s back. Davids' head snaps up before he looks down to make sure he hasn’t woken Ava. “Everything okay in here?” he asks, using his other hand to push away the locks of hair that have fallen in Davids' face.

“Sorry, sorry, she was crying for her bottle,” David explains, sitting up.

“That’s alright, I just woke up and you were gone.”

“I guess I fell asleep again,” David says, standing up and gently lowering Ava into her crib. Patrick moves to stand next to him, looking down at their  _ daughter _ and smiling like a fool.

He takes David’s hand again and asks, “Still worried that you can’t do this?” He knows that David is in this a hundred percent, but he needs to know where his husband is at right now.

“I’m absolutely terrified,” David admits, finally looking up to meet his eye, “but I know we can do this.”

David squeezes his hand and smiles at him. Instead of responding, Patrick rests his head on Davids' shoulder, holding him tight until Ava starts crying and they both jump back into daddy-duty.

It’s absolutely perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> I was going to end this with David's POV, but I just couldn't resist adding Patricks bit.
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](http://erandri.tumblr.com/)


End file.
